Close to the Edge: Little Simz’ Debut EP Proves She’s an Artist to Watch Out For

I’m a sucker for a clear delivery so I’ve never really fallen for a British rapper. Unless we’re slyly including Slick Rick on the list, in which case it’s just been a very long while. But back a decade ago when grime and garage were making headway on critics’ year end lists, I just couldn’t get into it. There was some good work but I was mostly drawn to it for the beats as for the most part the emcees seemed basically interchangeable.

Little Simz is all of 20, which means she would have been about ten when the UK grime scene was coming up big, which is more than a little terrifying to someone who’s on the closer side of 30. But that puts her two years ahead of previous Next Big Brit Dizzee Rascal’s breakthrough age and maybe that short span of time accounts for the brash, clear confidence she exhibits on her debut EP E.D.G.E. Throughout E.D.G.E., Simz performs with the clarity and finesse of a veteran artist, which is almost certainly why vets, like Dizzee himself, have flocked to her since the release of her breakthrough mixtape Blank Canvas, eager to capture a little bit of the youthful vigor she has in spades in the process. But Simz’ greatest ability isn’t her intimidating skills behind the mic, it’s the way she dodges trends in favor of a unique, chameleonic sound that contains traces of influences like Lauryn Hill and Nicki Minaj without getting bogged down in debt.

Right from the start of “Desire,” the track that kicks the EP off, Simz is aware of where she has come from yet fully devoted to carving out a bold future. Through her Space Age crew, Simz has aligned herself with other Afrofuturists like Shabazz Palaces and Thee Satisfaction and Jimi Nxir’s production reflects that, its sonic bed made up of alien voices and delayed, bitcrushed drums. Simz’ delivery has the twisty melodicism of Hill, but there are elements of grime’s playful antagonism, too, which serves to make “Desire” a bit like a startling wake-up from interstellar hibernation. “Enter the Void” carries over the dreaminess through its eerie synth lead hook, but here Simz is more rhythmic than melodic, her delivery veering between staccato bursts and an acrobatic escalation of speedy lines.

Unlike so many of her UK peers, Simz is a master at maintaining clarity even as she speeds up, a trait that is showcased particularly well on “Devour.” Pairing a Radiohead-like piano line with a beat Spank Rock would have killed for in the YoYoYoYoYo days, “Devour” makes good on Simz’ promise to “Be the first/best/lyricist to tell it like it is,” showcasing her dedication not just to doing justice to her own life’s story but also perfecting her technical chops. “Bars Simzson,” a bonus track included on the EP, stretches that to its logical extreme, the majority of its slightly less than two minute run time dedicated to a breathless delivery by Simz set against an earwormy hook and stark beat.

Some of E.D.G.E’s most promising moments come when Simz is relaxing and looking back, though, whether it’s the jazzy “Stay” or the EP’s title track, a more than six minute long epic built around a Timbaland-like beat from OTG and a key quote from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message.” Both tracks have plenty of shared DNA with Simz’ hip-hop ancestors, but they’re equally symbolic of how Simz is an artist who is more interested in building off what has come before than simply mimicking it. In nearly all of her interviews, Simz has been frank about the ways she feels modern hip-hop has strayed too far from its roots, forgoing groundbreaking experimentation and street level storytelling in favor of riding trends and endorsing crass commercialization. E.D.G.E. offers a glimpse at what Simz is capable of and how devoted she is to using her natural skills and her appreciation for history to steal the spotlight from her distracted American peers.

There are of course plenty of American artists exploring the less obvious ways hip-hop can reach people, but Simz seems uniquely set to recapture the promise of Afrika Bambaata’s brand of Afrofuturism and do so in the mainstream. “E.D.G.E.” itself is followed up with the technical EP closer “Time Travels” (a couple bonus tracks follow it), which switches out OTG’s Timbaland slithery funk for High Frequency’s appropriately spacey slow burn but keeps the same support team of Chuck2o and Josh Arce, adding in Tilla’s silky croon for extra flavor. Simz herself switches her voice over to a smooth, sultry tone and delivers a countermelody hook alongside Tilla, giving the track a pop sheen but Simz’ flow remains sharp and dexterous on the verses, sacrificing none of her edge. So many of Simz’ UK predecessors seemed to stumble into success and buzz and their stars unsurprisingly diminished once they started taking the pop game more seriously, but Simz is uncannily aware of the machinations of music while simultaneously proving she’s smart and flexible enough to not let those same machinations get in the way of making her music her way. Considering the hit-or-miss quality of Nicki Minaj’s work, Simz might just be a real contender for hip-hop’s new most dangerous predator.

Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Loser City as well asOvrld, where he contributes music reviews and writes a column on undiscovered Austin bands. You can also flip through his archives at Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, andSpectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with Dylan Garsee on twitter: @Nick_Hanover

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About Nick Hanover

Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Loser City as well as Ovrld, where he contributes music reviews and writes a column on undiscovered Austin bands. You can also flip through his archives at Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with Dylan Garsee on twitter: @Nick_Hanover